Hey There, Hot Shit

As I sat here staring at the blank Blogger template, I turned and looked over at my wife.  She sitting, just over there you know, doing some hand-work on some custom-made window shades for the living room. I waited till I'd caught her eye, and I lifted my left eyebrow, because I can't lift up the right.  She looked at me.

"Hey there, hot shit," she said.

I love being married-- and I love being married to a girl who says things like that to me.  I love being married to a girl who creates custom-made window shades for the living room, and who isn't afraid to cry in bed when the lights are off while she talks about therapy and her insecurities about who she is.  I love being married to a girl who likes to be held while she sleeps.  I once dated a girl who didn't like to be held in bed, didn't like to be spooned or touched.  I mean, what the hell was she?  A fucking Communist?

Our marriage is different now than it was when it started in 2006, and it's different now than it was in 2008 or 2010, too.  We don't spend as much time in theatres and concert halls and venues and the like as we used to, and that makes me sad, and I know it makes her sad too.  But we're parents times two now and something has to change-- some things have to change.  There are more arguments now, and I don't think that's because we're turning sour or something like that, I think it's because there's more at stake now, there's more important decisions that have to be made, daily, and the more things there are going on that carry gravitas, the more disagreements are going to happen.

It's inevitable, like graying pubes.  Sorry, sometimes I'm just twelve.  But you knew that.

My wife works very hard, and I don't just mean at work.  I mean at home too.  And, there is very little in her life or our lives that provides some sort of catharsis, but one thing is, was, and always has been a comfort is that, at the end of every day, we get to collapse in our nice (could be bigger) antique bed and hold the hell out of each other.  I think some of the fierceness with which we hug sometimes or cuddle sometimes comes out of a fear of life-- it's scary out there-- and about how, if you don't hang on, you might get swept away by it all.  Sometimes you need to hold on, very very tightly.  And sometimes that's okay.

I was talking about my wife's brain surgery to a colleague today, and remembering some of the details of that whole mess that I hadn't thought about in years.  I remembered the smell of her in the hospital-- disinfectant and matted blood and the cold, metallic scent of the staples was enough to make you sick.  But I still climbed into that Stryker bed with her and held on tight, because I was scared she was going to get swept away.  The only woman who really understood me, appreciated me, cared for me and allowed me to do all the same in return-- I let them wheel her away from me and put her in an elevator and cut her apart.

I still don't think I've forgiven myself for that, all these years later.

She's ironing the curtain behind me now.  There's one hung up in the living room-- and it's beautiful.  No.  Not beautiful...

Hot shit.